The Lorax in the Senate

Senators are reading The Lorax, the picture book by Dr. Seuss. A couple of years ago, when the movie based on the book came out, I wrote about Seuss and The Lorax for National Review. The piece is reprinted online today:

The conclusion of The Lorax is more hopeful, but its full vision is nearly as dark and spiteful, quite different from the brightness and laughter that most parents and teachers associate with Seuss. “Every once in a while I get mad,” said Seuss in 1983. “The Lorax came out of my being angry.” So he channeled his rage into his work: “The ecology books I’d read were dull. . . . In The Lorax I was out to attack what I think are evil things and let the chips fall where they might.” A few years earlier, he had described his method more bluntly: “The Lorax book was intended to be propaganda.”